Can those constraints be removed? Can medical training be
improved? Not likely. We are throwing money at medicine in the US,
much more than anywhere else in the world. It may or may
not give us better care ( most likely, it doesn't ).

We throw money at it because we do not wish to be seen as
skinflints. But medical costs in the US are still rising at
a doubling every several years - I think eight.

We're throwing money at it because health care is a business that
yields
rich profits. There is nothing wrong with profit, the profit motive is
an effective way to get things done when someone makes money on a
benefit they provide to someone else. But just like on Wall St.,
health
care companies come up with ways to increase their profits without
necessarily providing much benefit for anyone else.

Won't argue there - so caveat emptor.

The American health insurance industry absorbs more money for
administrative overhead than anywhere else in the world, and it's
not by
a few percentage points, it's in multiples.

It varies. Medicine is *NOTORIOUSLY* administratively inefficient,
but even then, as Ezra Klein reported through the debate on ACA,
it will make some difference, but not a lot. Ezra's no expert; he
was acting as an aggregator.

<snip>

When I was working as a billing clerk they were regarded as low adm
costs.

Yeah, comparisons with Medicare are one of the main ways other
medical businesses are evaluated. Medicare is known to be more
efficient.

--
Les Cargill

The claims adm is contracted out to BCBS and Aetna for the most part.

If so, that proves the private
health insurance industry is
overcharging its policy holders
based on inflated overhead
numbers -- or that their claims
processes are too cumbersome
because they work so hard to
minimize payouts via whatever
means necessary, which also
increases adminstrative
overhead for the hospitals and
medical practices who often
have to fight through multiple
layers of bureaucracy to get
paid. All this inflates the
costs of medical treatment far
beyond what goes on in other
comparable industrialized
countries, to the great
detriment of sick Americans.
.

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